My work
My research, teaching and policy engagement examine public administration reform and the capacity of the state to deliver on its commitments to citizens. I answer questions about why public institutions so often struggle to change, and what it takes to build a public service that is dynamic, learning-focused and able to connect policy to implementation. Within this work, I study three levers of state capacity: the systems and processes through which governments get work done; the public service’s ability to bring in, and actually make use of, new types of talent; and the internal accountability regimes that too often constrain public servants’ creativity and efficiency without making government more accountable. I also ask how these reforms, including the push to bring digital technologies and AI into government, might threaten, or alternatively, uphold traditional principles of democratic governance and citizens’ trust in the state. Across these work streams, my central goal is to build more capable, trustworthy and democratically accountable governments, and to put the case for public sector reform squarely on the agenda in Canada.
About me
I was born in Montreal, Quebec, and raised in Ottawa, Ontario, where I now live. In 2014 I earned my doctorate at the University of Oxford as a Trudeau Scholar. Prior to my academic career, I was a researcher at the Library of Parliament. In that role I wrote reports and briefed parliamentarians on citizen engagement, public administration, and digital technologies.
I’m a recipient of a Government of Ontario Early Researcher Award, a Research Fellow of the Canada School of Public Service and was awarded Carleton University’s Faculty of Public Affairs Public Engagement Excellence Award. In 2021, Apolitical named me one of the 100 Most Influential Academics in Government.
News
Modernizing Government to Build State Capacity: talk to the Women’s Executive Leadership Development Program
Today I had the pleasure of speaking with federal public service leaders in the Canada School of Public Service's Executive Leadership Development Program for Women Leaders about what it takes to build a more capable federal public service. Drawing on my current research, I made the case that modernizing government is not primarily about technology, but about the systems, rules, talent and leadership that determine what the public service can actually deliver.
Dismantling Ottawa’s Costly Web of Rules: new IRPP study with Étienne Charbonneau
The federal government's internal accountability regime has become a dense web of rules, sign-offs and reporting requirements that slows the public service down far more than it holds it to account for results. In a new study for the Institute for Research on Public Policy's Rebuilding State Capacity series, Étienne Charbonneau and I trace how this regime grew to its current dysfunctional state, and set out how to fix it without diluting democratic accountability. Our recommendations include simplifying the existing rule set, transparently reporting on the costs and impacts of internal red tape, and evaluating public servants on the rules they remove and the services they deliver. This study is the first output of a larger SSHRC-funded project we're leading on the costs Canadians bear for the ineffective rules, processes and oversight functions imposed on federal public servants. More to come!
Digital Transformation Canada Needs to Start Fresh – new op-ed in The Hill Times
Machinery-of-government changes often create the appearance of reform while leaving the rules, contracts, and leadership of the old institutions intact. In The Hill Times, I argue that if the recently launched Digital Transformation Canada is going to succeed at finally modernizing the federal government for the digital age, it must be treated not as a merger of existing organizations, but as the founding of a new institution with a mandate to drop the rules, processes, practices, and importantly, the custodians, of the old order.